varaal malayalam movie review

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Varaal review: The best of Kannan Thamarakkulam’s work ends up as a parody!

The Anoop Menon-Madhuri Braganza starrer proves that an ensemble cast, good premises and a huge budget can’t always make for a good movie.

Published:Oct 15, 2022

Varaal Malayalam film. (Supplied)

More of a spoof of Lucifer!

Varaal (Malayalam)

Cast: Anoop Menon, Prakash Raj, Sunny Wayne, Madhuri Braganza, Renji Panicker, Suresh Krishna and Priyanka Nair
Director: Kannan Thamarakkulam
Producer: PA Sebastian
Music: Gopi Sunder
Runtime: 2 hours
Cast: Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif, Emraan Hashmi, and Revathy
Director: Maneesh Sharma
Producer: Aditya Chopra
Music: Pritam Chakraborty
Runtime: 2 hours 35 minutes

The upcoming Assembly election in Kerala is the subject of Varaal .

A political outfit called the LPF, led by current Chief Minister Achuthan Nair, wants to win a third term. However, everyone is shocked by the Opposition CDF’s new announcement.

A businessman named David John Medayil is selected as its chief ministerial candidate. Anoop Menon is David John Medayil, who is here to unite the many warring sides in an effort to defeat the LPF.

Anoop Menon’s Varaal , which he wrote, is an interpretation of modern Kerala politics and also features honeytraps. Islamic terrorism is also added to the mix. In addition, we see a mass makeover of Anoop Menon himself.

On the plus side, there are certain twists and turns that we may not expect. But with a lot of things injected, it never stops moving; everything keeps on running. It darts around like a headless chicken.

Too many dialogues and characters

There are too many dialogues, too many characters, and not enough character development. A lot of characters pop up, but don’t add anything to the story.

Anoop Menon is a still from ‘Varaal’. (Supplied)

Varaal uses its initial 15-20 minutes to introduce the characters, but ends up becoming a spoof of Lucifer .

After around 30 minutes, it loses its sense and never regains it.

Many scenes are unintentionally funny, and sometimes stupid, too. Anjana Kurup’s scene is an example.

Thanks to the old-age narration style, in its attempt to criticise Kerala politics and make a powerful political thriller, Varaal turns into an avoid-it-at-any-cost political thriller with its TV-serial kind of filmmaking.

On the technical side, it is the best in Kannan Thamarakkulam’s movie list. But it still must be among the worst of the year with mainstream actors.

The cinematography was fine. It wasn’t special, but it wasn’t bad.

The editing was annoying, though. The film cuts randomly during scenes, which makes it hard to keep focus. A loud and overly clichéd background score makes it even worse.

A huge cast fails to work magic

The flick’s main strength is the presence of many good names. Anoop Menon is as good as he was in his first film.

Prakash Raj is underutilised. Why is he in the film if it has nothing for him? Who dubbed his voice? And yet, Prakash Raj is the only actor who impresses.

Prakash Raj in a still from ‘Varaal’. (Supplied)

There are many more known faces such as Suresh Krishna, Saikumar, Renji Panicker, Madhuri Braganza, Senthil Krishna, Sudheer, Gowri Nandha, Nandhu, and Jayakrishnan.

Nevertheless, an ensemble cast, a good premise, and a huge budget can’t always make a good movie.

Varaal is like a parody of the 1990s’ political thrillers plus some elements from Lucifer . To recommend it to anyone besides the devotees of Kannan Thamarakkulam and Anoop Menon would truly be unethical.

To sum it up, Varaal is a poorly executed film, a glaring misfire, and a catastrophe!